Behold, the Non-Iron Shirt

It may seem strange to see a product without a microchip being touted as high-tech or high-performance. But the same marketing ideas that have done so much for cars and computers are also helping sell men’s garments.

Underwear, workout clothes, cold-weather gear are billed as delivering seamless comfort, temperature regulation, odor control — and such moisture-wicking capabilities that you wonder if the items should be banned in drought zones.

So it seems odd that one of the most tangible and practical advances in textile technology, resistance to wrinkles, has proved a tepid selling point for men’s dress shirts.

The reason? Such shirts have a reputation for feeling hot and itchy, largely a result of a resinous coating that has been the leading wrinkle defense and can make even an all-cotton shirt feel like something made to protect outdoor furniture.

Moreover, the chemical stew applied to non-iron garments contains formaldehyde, which can irritate some people’s skin. A 2010 survey of treated textiles by the Government Accountability Office found that, of 180 items tested, wrinkle-resistant men’s shirts were among the handful exceeding safe levels.

The difficulties in making non-iron shirts may explain these numbers from Cotton Incorporated, the industry group: In 2014, 65 percent of male consumers said they were likely to seek out wrinkle-resistant business wear, yet only 17 percent of dress shirts (or “woven tops,” in the unsexy industry parlance) were marketed as wrinkle-resistant.

Fabric technology has improved, and now there are non-iron dress shirts that feel like something you would cover yourself with instead of your car. Thomas Pink, J. Crew and Uniqlo offer wrinkle-resistant shirts as part of their basics, and all three report that sales are exceeding projections. (In a nod to the needs of frequent fliers, J. Crew calls its shirt the Traveler.)

More surprisingly, high-end shirtmakers are moving in on the territory. Ermenegildo Zegna, the Italian clothing company long considered an industry leader in textile development, is working with a new, extra-long staple cotton cultivar that delivers a light and soft fabric requiring no treatment at all; the new shirts go on sale in June.

“There’s been this stigma against these shirts, but they’ve come a long way,” said Marshal Cohen, the chief analyst for the NPD Group, a market research firm. “Higher-end retailers are realizing that if you can get a guy to buy one, then a second one, that’s where the growth is going to come from.”

Brooks Brothers, which started offering non-iron shirts in 1998, sold six million last year, or about 90 percent of its shirt sales, said Joe Dixon, its senior vice president for global sourcing and production. Brooks has never stopped refining the product, he said, changing the cotton to Supima and making the non-iron treatment lighter and gentler.

Old prejudices die hard, though.

“Personally, I like ironing,” said Brian Sacawa, 37, author of a men’s wear blog, He Spoke Style, and the owner of two non-iron shirts from Brooks. “Now people want everything fast, so the non-iron dress shirt is perfect for that, but I’m looking for ways to escape the quick modern reality. It’s the men’s wear equivalent of craft whisky, doing things the old-fashioned way. We should slow down a little.”